Alone in the Dark 2 - Puzzling

 Its time to deal with those unpleasent goons. Let's see how many bullets I...

Note the weird head in the center

...Ten bullets? Ten. Assuming these toughs are the easiest enemy in the game, that's still one I have to fight with my fists. Okay...I must have just missed a magazine or something. Yes, there's another one in that room. Okay, let's do this.

If somebody asks you what AitD2 is about, send them this screenshot

Jammed? JAMMED? JAMMED!? ARE YOU...!? Okay, this isn't due to magic, its just jammed. In a normal game, we'd just be able to unjam it. Since this is taking the worst traits of adventure and action games, we're going to need an item to do it, methinks. If only I still had that pipe cleaner.
I start off by trying the other token on the machine again. This causes a doubloon to mysteriously appear. Dunno why. There seems to be a number on the model, I hope it isn't important. I hope, I hope, I hope.

Seen here, after disappearing into nothing

While I'm going upstairs to vainly search for something to solve my problems, the trident guy throws his trident at me. I manage to make it upstairs, but climb back down to make sure I'm not screwed later. The trident is moving around weirdly and then hits the other chef. Haha, two problems solved.

Its not that impressive in motion

Back upstairs, I try once again to take the amulet...and it works. Why? Carnby gets flown up...for some reason. At first I think I'm screwed and this is a death sequence, but then I appear in another floor, an attic I think. There's a note and a flask.

Where am I placing this?

The note is...telegraphs don't really have those stop messages, right? This seems silly. Also, a bit of irony in future Looney Tunes licensee making a game with an Acme company in it.

The real toughest battle so far

The next room has two goons. Sounds simple enough. One's melee and the other's ranged. Little difficult. It sounds a little difficult. Its very difficult. Its not exactly a question of winning, I find that not too difficult. The problem is not winning by an incredibly small margin. The ranged user is a known variable, he hits, sometimes he doesn't. The melee is a new, fun enemy. For a while all the enemies have been ignoring my melee attacks and the tommy gun usually jams. And this melee enemy is a gymnast. Not only does he ignore my melee attacks, when he's in the middle of one of his, even if I do hurt him he still makes the attack. He at least drops a flask that gives you thirty points of health, but forget it if they expect me to move forward with 31 points of health.

You were stealthy for Striker, why not me?

After doing some kind of victory, helped by another Tommy gun placed inside a box, which actually works. At some point I should probably drop some of these items that are of no value anymore. There's a certain advantage to the way Resident Evil has an item limit, in addition to squirelling away all the notes. There's one room, with I believe the toy version of One-Eyed Jack, but that seems to be useless. In the other room is where Grace was, and now isn't. The Joker zombie is still there, and he seems to be an actual puzzle. Shooting or melee is useless. The room next to him is some kind of snakes and those are instakills. What can I do?

You must have missed the last hour of the game, Carnby

I try the grenade and the pompom, on both the joker and the entrance into the snake room. Eventually Carnby throws the pompom, figuring this must have done something. I run out of the room. The clown follows. I run back in, checking for items, then run into the snake room, surviving. I seem to have thrown it into this room, fat lot of good that's done me. There's a chimney so I climb down.

Now who's sneaking up on who?

This takes me to the room with the five goons. Just dumping me there. The goons get out of the way and then start blasting away. This game. This freaking game. Well, I have to admit I at least know how to do this.

"Armour", say what, old chap?

I mostly had this figured out properly. I'm supposed to use the pompom into the snake room. Snakes chase after the joker, leaving me alone. Then, I'm supposed to use the grenade down the chimney. This kills two of the enemies. Two. I guess this also softens up the rest of them, but they killed me good a couple of times. Through clever use of scenery, I manage to survive this encounter without the bullet-proof vest. I think I might just need that later. Inside this room is...a billiard ball. That was all I needed. There's a door that leads to a bathroom. Nice to know they weren't just climbing the stairs...why is there another bathroom on the second floor again?

Doesn't take a genius to figure out where to use the billiard ball. Considering how many items are of such specific use I'm surprised I've had any trouble. I'm not supposed to use the billiard ball on the table, because "its the wrong kind of billiard"???? Whatever, it goes into the other machine, the bookcase moves and the path is finally clear.

When I enter the room, the screen turns black, and I wake up in a cell. The camera cuts to outside of the cell, which is another bedroom, containing Grace and the real One-Eyed Jack.

You can tell this game has a higher budget than the last one, it certainly shows in places

Jack goes on to tell me his backstory, he was a pirate. He captured Some captain cursed his name and said his sword will kill him. That sword's still on the ship. Wonder what I'm going to do with that. There was no treasure, but Elisabeth Jarret, and he knew his destiny and death were far away. While he's talking about this, Grace sneaks away. Then he leaves me, in the cell, alone. I'm going to be here a while, aren't I?

Total Time: 7 hours

This Session: 1.5 hours